Data in Correct Portal Row

[susan]

I have a solution tracking student test scores. There is a Tests file which contains a record for every test a student takes and a Reports file which displays whatever info through portals. I have a grid created comprised of 6 portals (K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd...) keyed on a student id. When a student has taken every test in a given year it works great. As expected when a student does not have a record for say the 3rd test in the list, all the data below that test move up one row in the portal, which doesn't display the grid accurately. I have two solutions which I know would work...

Solution 1: Create a record for every test for every student, even if that student will never take Test X. Leave the Score field blank.

Solution 2: Create a 1-line portal for every test in each grade (84 total). Place the portals in the corresponding "cell" of the grid.

Both seem somewhat cumbersome. Is one more advisable? Or is there a third?

Thanks for your advice.

Susan

[FUBAR]

I suppose it depends on how the rest of your database is set up...

Is there a field for Test Number that corresponds to each test score?

If this is the case, there may be a third solution but it's probably really tricky (I can't help too much of the top of my head.)

If this field doesn't exist, then solution 1 seems like the best since you could create a script that would automatically create the 84 blank records every time a new Student ID is entered.

Hope this helps.

[susan]

In the Tests file there is a field for student_id, test, test score, and yeartaken,

Thinking about the idea of creating a script which would create the records for each test...can I script entry of data into one of the fields? In other words, is it possible to write a script that, upon entry of a new student_id, creates 84 records for that student, AND enters a unique test name in the Test field for each record?

Thanks.

Susan

[FUBAR]

Sure its possible, but depending on how you set up your database will depend on how complicated the script will be.

If the tests are based on numbers (1-84) then this can be entered easily using the field option 'Seiral number'. Or using a global field that gets incremented by one every time a new record is created can be used to set the 'Test' field.

If you have a seperate database that contains the years and the tests that were taken that year, then by using a relationship with year you could create a portal and copy the information about test names into the new blank fields.

You might not even have to copy the information if you leave the test names in one database, and then by using a relationship with year you could just view the test names from one database using a portal, and save the test scores to another database.

And of course there's always "hard-coding" which would involve you typing in all 84 names into the script, but I don't think anyone wants to do that.

Again there are lots of ways to accomplish this